A school principal in Montreal reportedly told a parent: "'Every time your son eats like a pig, he'll be disciplined.'" Maria Theresa Gallardo, the mother of 7-year old Luc Cagadoc, says that now her son no longer wants to go to school and dreads lunchtime. Luc's "problem" was that he ate his lunch with a fork and a spoon, as he says Filipinos traditionally do. When his teacher saw him doing this, she called him "disgusting," "a pig" and "a  clown."

This conflict has sparked and international protest over whether little Luc should be forced to "adjust to the Canadian way of eating. The school board claims that this is a matter of etiquette, not culture, while people on the other side of the issue are calling it "an affront to Filipino culture" and outright racism. Cultural sensitivity needs to be taught to educators, say anti-racism groups, so that discrimination - even if it is unintentional - can be avoided.

What utensils do the school officials expect small children to use during lunch? The majority of schools seem to provive no more than sporks to students - would such a fusion be more or less acceptable than separate use of the spoon and fork?

Starbucks is making inroads into France, one of the two countries in the world most famous for its cafe culture, but the process is a long and slow one. In France, operating costs are extremely high and the competition is stiff; the long standing national past time of lounging in cafes has produced very high quality coffees and loyal patrons that are formidable competition for the American chain. And though Starbucks is slowly gaining acceptance from its French consumers, the mainstay of its clientele is foreign, which is why Starbucks has chosen to in tourist heavy areas and branch outwards.

Lines form out the doors at Paris locations, mostly of Asian and American tourists. The tourists are likely to order more traditional drinks, like espressos, but come for the familiar feel of the large, comfortable cafe, not to mention the smoke-free atmosphere that they maintain. More and more frequently there are French university students and young professions joining the queue, looking for something over-the-top that they can only find at the American cafe. Starbucks is finding its new niche in the country, despite the fact that there are only 23 outlets in France, compared to more than 55,000 traditional cafes there. Will Starbucks' popularity prove to be real competition for the other cafes? Unlikely, and certainly not in the near future, but it will probably be able to hold its own, even if it operates on a limited scale.

 Gadling has a great post about discovering the birthplace of the pizza. Many consider Italy in general to be the originator of the popular dish, even though others will argue that the only pizzas worth eating come from New York. The pizza, apparently, was invented in Naples, Italy, the city that is, according to the Times reporter, the birthplace of fast food. The locals eat fried, nut-studded donuts and cream-filled sfogliatelle for breakfast and have been seen to nosh on pizza while riding on the back of a moped, cruising the motorway at high speeds.

What's the difference between this kind of on-the-go eating and the more traditionally American definition of fast food? American fast food is food made quickly. Whether or not it is eater quickly is entirely up to the eater, though the food is usually presented in a way that makes it easy to consume while doing other things. The traditional Italian fast food may be simple and may be eaten quickly, but it does not have to be made quickly. The country is known for its slow food movement, after all, and Naples is certainly not left out. The bakers are kneading dough and lovingly shaping it in pizzerias because it is their passion to make the food, however long it takes, not just to make something fast, edible and get it out the door.

I hate to be the one to break this to lifestyle reporters everywhere, but whining about the names of the drinks and the options at Starbucks is old. Very old. We've been there, we know what the names are and we have a great deal of pity that you find the option to have non-fat, low-fat or whole milk in your coffee to be "dizzying." They have medications to treat that sort of thing, you know.

If you want to cover something interesting, why don't you take a look at what cultural and social anthropologists (or historians masquerading as such) are studying when they visit Starbucks. Bryant Simon, a professor at Temple University, observes the patrons who visit Starbucks instead of the coffee shop's menu. He has done research at hundreds of Starbucks in six countries, looking at behaviors of the modern coffee consumer and learning about "cafe culture" in an age of globalization. He believes that Starbucks help fill "some kind of deep desire for connection with other people" without actually having to interact with them. The coffee shops, Simon says, are "selling comfort," letting people be anonymous together in an atmosphere that doesn't vary much from place to place; predictability is actually a somewhat rare virtue in a rapidly moving and changing world. And the effect spreads beyond America's borders, as patrons in other countries often exhibit similar behaviors and look for the same comforting things.

His paper, his "opus," will be titled Consuming Starbucks and will reach publication in 2008.

[Photo by Sarah Gilbert]

The internet is chock full of recipe sites ranging from the good to the bad. Usually, when I'm researching a recipe, I use a combination of Google and my favorite recipe aggregation sites. The CookbookWiki aims to collect all the world's culinary traditions and recipes into one wiki site. Wikipedia already does a good job of covering food, but perhaps with CookbookWiki's tight focus, it can be an even more invaluable resource for chefs and amateur cooks alike. They already have an aggressive development plan for the content. What do you think about this resource?